Have you ever noticed an interesting insect or spider while you were outside? Bugs are all around us, but it can be easy to walk past them without noticing. You might find something interesting in your backyard, at a local park, or while out on a walk.
Although they are small, insects and spiders play an important role in our local environment. They can help with pollination, decomposition and provide food for other animals. Taking the time to notice and learn about them can help us better understand the environment around us and why it is important to protect it.
If you spot an interesting bug, you can take a photo and record where and when you saw it. You can then submit your sighting to this blog and share what you found. Every sighting is an opportunity to learn something new about the bugs living around Perth and the Southwest. Here is one I would like to share:
This spider is a Garden Orb Weaver that lived in my backyard for around 6 months and would spin a beautiful web every night on my fence that was as big as the wheel of a bicycle. It was raining a bit when I took this photo but she was too busy eating a moth to be bothered or take down the web.
Every night after the sun would set, she would build the web in the same place. And before the sun would rise again in the morning, she would take apart her work, roll it up and eat it, only leaving behind a few structural threads up during the day ready for her to start all over again the next night. The webs became increasingly bigger, more complex and even more beautiful as the months went on.
One night, she moved for the first time under the patio for a big feed in front of a solar lamp. I’d never seen the web so full of bugs! And then a few nights later, she was gone. But not long after, I began spotting more and more little spiders sitting in the middle of their webs around the backyard at night. When they grow up, I hope I can identify them, but right now they’re so small I can’t pick them up with my camera!
If you’d like to learn more about Garden Orb Weavers, Minibeast Wildlife has an excellent article, which you can find here:
https://www.minibeastwildlife.com.au/resources/garden-orb-weavers/